With the advent of digital photography, consumers are amassing large collections of digital images and videos. The average number of images captures with digital cameras per photographer is still increasing each year. As a consequence, the organization and retrieval of images and videos is already a problem for the typical consumer. Currently, the length of time spanned by a typical consumer's digital image collection is only a few years. The organization and retrieval problem and its complexity will continue to grow as the length of time spanned by the average digital image and video collection increases and the sources for image content also increases.
Descriptors of a photographer, such as biometric data, can be detected and/or recorded in an image capture device such as a digital camera.
US Patent Application Publication US 2003/235411A1 discloses an imaging apparatus wherein a biological recording means records biological information of a photographer and subsequently uses this information to control the imaging apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,433,818 describes a camera with built-in apparatus for acquiring measured biometric data of a potential user, comparing it with corresponding biometric signature data entered in the camera, and allowing camera operation only if there is a match. This function provides security and prevents unauthorized access to the data stored on the camera, thereby discouraging theft.
U.S. Patent Application Publication US 2002/0080256A1 describes a digital camera with built-in apparatus for biometric identification of the photographer and for recording the identification of the photographer of an image. Furthermore, this feature can be used to discourage theft or piracy of the camera. Preferably, an image of the photographer's Iris is captured to determine the identity of the photographer.
One of the most prevalent image content subjects of photography is people. Furthermore, in a given collection of digital images and videos, certain people tend to occur frequently. For example, it is common for most images captured by new parents to contain their new baby. Consumers desire the ability to find all images from their collection containing a specific person.